Marianne Williamson is running for president

 Marianne serves herself up on a half shell, raw and true.  

Proudly calloused

    from the last campaign, she makes 

    her grand return by noting

streets are littered with more bodies 

than cigarette butts.

By noting Americans want

     to live a normal life 

     yet feel the shade 

of ruin nearby. 

And so Marianne confronts the powerful

        and calls for mercy.  

     Marianne overcomes despair

with spiritual ideas 

like love 

      which the powerful dismiss 

      as beneath them. 

Marianne carves up their coldness 

      and swears that

      kindness can heal the cold-eyed 

exchange of money. 

To Marianne, the campaign is a crusade 

and the podium her pulpit 

      and politics is for all the people.

Marianne cries for the ways

    we have been abandoned

by the leaders. 

Their promises passed down 

      and around, 

like clothes in a washer. 

She says don’t believe things

they say that hurt you 

        but believe in something 

that will not hurt you. 

Marianne ought to rein supreme. 

But the party thinks not. 

They mock her.  

I dream of Marianne basking 

in the media-curated sunlight, 

        of the whole nation holding her ideas

in its palms. 

And Marianne saying, Thank you all 

     for coming, 

     for being  raw and true.  

      

For knowing all lives matter.  

Answers

 This shapeless blowing wind

      wide 

 and high—

so refreshing that

     the moment froze 

and then the rising, 

     falling 

wind began

     anew

across the desert 

of my skin 

     over the hills 

of my cheeks. 

Gentle currents

in glowing 

    shapes  

flowing silent 

     as fish

and then 

they hurry 

    over me—

a perfect moment, 

giving me this 

    answer 

to everything.

And in other news

The reporter tosses gruesome headlines 

at the camera.  

I can tell she‘s reading

the teleprompter

line for line. 

Her blond hair drapes down

her chest, stopping on her heart. 

She has a good make-up artist.  

Together they can rule the world.  

“Ten shot dead,” says she

as if the sorry dead of ten 

were a sorry nest of mice.  

I can’t imagine her

as somebody’s mother.  Real life

reeks too much for her.  

Real life smells like tuna.  

But she drones on. 

Ten other victims wounded.  

And in other news, the Lakers win

another round.  

And  I think, she ought to say,

People, people

This is the 34th mass shooting 

so far this year.  

She ought to add—And the year is just beginning. 

She should say this in a voice that’s breaking.  

She should touch her heart and say,

I cannot bear to talk about the Lakers.

For that, come back another day. 

But there’s no chance at all 

of changing how she 

arranges her words 

till they taste ok.  

She forgot what truth sounds like.

The pay is that good.  

Follow me

 They’re all gone now

and Self, we have almost forgotten

the excitements in this house

Three generations. 

Three merry, quixotic kids.  

A black Lab that loved salads.  

The baby suddenly 

on the scene (after the daughter parachutes

into skid row)—and then 

there are more of us 

to fall in and out of love with 

every day.  

Every day. 

More dental visits, more hands to hold,

more apologies, more praying in the middle of the night. 

In the night.  

Blurry days between one decade 

and the next. 

Sometimes doves sing in our windows, 

sometimes cop cars stop by.   

Sometimes silence just waits 

out there. 

Waits. Waits. 

Grandma dies. 

The kids find mates.  

And one copper sunset, the husband 

sits still as a moon rock.  

A moon rock.  

And for the first time, dear Self, 

you make coffee for one.  

Just one. 

And for a long time, you read the paper feeling 

him in the next chair 

until one day truth 

seems less paranormal 

and you remember his green chili omelettes 

only on his birthday.  

His birthday. 

And then you ask and ask and ask

when should we leave that house 

and we wait and wait 

for a signal

from the forest, from the ball of yarn, 

from the olive oil, from the twigs, 

from the dead squirrel on the sidewalk.  

On the sidewalk. 

Until that rainy night 

it comes in the candle, 

in the red halo of the wick. 

The house looks different. 

Less familiar. Less young. Less ours.  

Less. Less. Less.   

And we are overcome with the vision 

of  a small boat, a light wind on the boat, 

a motor humming:  

Follow me. Follow me.  

So we empty the closets, 

pack the trophies, 

shut the blinds, 

and lock the doors  

Lock, lock,  the doors.  

And I remember him. 

Dear husband, Where do you 

sleep tonight? Tonight? 

I want to believe. 

Believe. Believe.  

We will always love each other

 I am the master and all he needs 

is a gentle Please clean up your room 

and he cleans up his room and 

when I say, Let’s give these Canada geese a chase, 

he becomes the wind.

From his Halloween bucket he offers me treats.

I only take candies I know he doesn't like 

and he says: 

 

We will always love each other because 

we don’t like the same things. 

Of that boy there is nothing now. 

Not a hair of him, not a finger print, no forensics. 

Just photos and diary notes 

remain as my proof 

to the cops he was really here.

 

All of him carried away with his small teeth 

by the Fairy in her talons. 

And then a bold freed slave appears at the door.

Bushy and tall, demanding his rights, some appalling.

So sudden. This manhood. As sudden

as the strike of a match.

It takes a while to recover from a death, 

from grief. 

 

But I do. 

Already he redecorates the bedroom

and uses his unmade bed for a hamper. 

Yesterday I say, Welcome to my home. 

It was starting to get lonely.

Breaking News: Kroger to buy Albertsons

Another merger, just as the prophet 

     Marx predicted.

Capital never sleeps. 

     In continuous motion

to suck all that its forked 

     and flicking tongue 

can reach in its craving to beceome

     multinational, multi-planet--

all-dominant universes —Black Holes.

     (Let's give them names--Walmart. Chevron. Disney.)

And we the ruined shops and souls 

     are their fuel.

And we are the stars that twitch then

    vanish over their event horizons, 

torn into invisible bits

    where once we were whole beings 

who created all manner of gods and angels 

     to save us from all manner of hells 

but who are helpless before a force

    that swallows light itself.

All my life, the numbers who suffer grow

Nor can the little ones escape.

In fact theirs will be worse:

the climate will sweep away their bodies 

like wind sweeps up the sage brush

but still they angle for jobs that will kill them. 

The lettuce fields, Quick Stops, 

the meat packers and

old secretaries and truckers with bad backs

and huge co-pays 

who cannot retire, 

and again 

railroad workers are told, 

Sorry, no sick leave! 

Those are the rules. 

And so they all wait for another 

planet to roll by

or maybe Heaven.

All my life, the world makes 

more and more of those 

who sleep in bunks, who will never own, 

whose lives must fit beneath a tarp. 

Not enough to go around.   

Not enough baby formula.  

Not enough insulin.

Not enough warm coats.

Not enough schools without broken windows.  

Not enough. Not enough.

Just little fixes that don’t fix.  

A high-interest loan, food stamps,

and reminders to say

thank you, Pfizer,

thank you, Elon

thank you for not taking everything,

for leaving the cheap couch

from China, this hand gun,

the crystal meth, 

this last frozen pizza.

Thank you for sharing the air.